our bicenntenial

The San Pablo Historical and Museum Society celebrated the Bicentennial of the Rancho San Pablo land grant of 1823 to Don Francisco María Castro at a community event held at Maple Hall on Thursday, April 27, 2023, with exhibits covering the history of San Pablo from its beginnings as home to the indigenous Ohlone tribes.

THE OHLONE WAY

In the beginning...

The coastal region of central and northern California, which includes Oakland, has a history recording back to 2000 B.C.E.  The inhabitants at the time were the Ohlone people–a Native American tribe formally known as the “Costanoans” (from Spanish costeño meaning 'coast dweller'). Up until the 1770’s when Spanish explorers first discovered the area, the Ohlone people occupied the land and utilized its resources. They were mainly recorded as hunter-gathers, but they also engaged in basic forms of agriculture. Like most Native American tribes, the Ohlone felt a close tie to the natural environment. The hills and mountainsides were covered with a combination of grasslands, redwoods, and oak forests, while the coastlines consisted of large rocky areas and vast marshlands (Williams, 2003: 11). They learned to live in these spaces while utilizing its variety of resources to serve their essential needs- from harvesting plants, nuts, and grasses to hunting different kinds of animals, including bobcats, coyotes, and ducks.

For thousands of years, the Ohlone lived in a village called "Huchiun" along the bay. The center of this village was between the two creeks now named Wildcat and San Pablo.

Food was plentiful with two creeks providing fresh water, nourishing plants, and attracting animals. In addition, the bay was a source of fish and shellfish. They were part of a great trade network, and traded seashells for obsidian with tribes in Napa and Lake Counties. The people built homes and boats out of reeds called Tule.

Between 5000 and 1000 BC, an indigenous tribe of people called the Huchiun, a clan of Ohlone peoples, came to the East Bay, including the area of San Pablo.  Several Huchiun villages were located on San Pablo Avenue near Church Lane and along the creeks. The Huchiun left a now-buried shell mound beside San Pablo Creek near El Sobrante. 

Between November 1794 and May 1795, the Huchiun were forcibly converted to Christianity by Spanish missionaries.  After all of the Huchiun were removed to Mission San Francisco, they suffered an epidemic of European diseases as well as food shortages, and died in great numbers, resulting in alarming statistics of death and escapes from the missions.  In pursuing the runaways, the Franciscans sent neophytes first and (as a last resort) soldiers to go round up the runaway "Christians" from their relatives, and bring them back to the missions.  Thus, illness spread both inside and outside of the missions.

After Mexican independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Spanish colonists were given land grants, one of which was Rancho San Pablo, deeded to Don Francisco María Castro in 1823. The grant's boundaries were unusually complicated, as they were to be determined by the boundaries of the surrounding grants: San Antonio, El Sobrante, El Pinole, Boca de la Cañada del Pinole, Acalanes, and La Laguna de los Palos Colorados.

Shellmounds are sacred burial sites of the Ohlone and Coast Miwok peoples. They are considered by Ohlone people to be living cemeteries, places of prayer, veneration and connection with the ancestors. “Shellmounds are places where we laid our ancestors to rest,” Corrina Gould explains. “We actually buried them in the soil and then covered them with shell and then more soil. As the years and centuries went by, these mounds grew larger and larger. They became monuments to the people that lived here in the Bay Area.”

As settlers flooded into the San Francisco area during the Gold Rush, the leveling and desecration of shellmounds began, clearing the way for development. Noticing the rate at which the mounds were vanishing, an archeologist from UC Berkeley named Nels Nelson worked to create a map in 1909 of those which remained. His map identified 425 distinct shellmound sites ringing the San Francisco Bay. Today, only a handful of those remain in a natural state. Most lie buried beneath parking lots and buildings.

The Ohlone are the predominant Indigenous group of the Bay Area, including the Chochenyo and the Karkin in East Bay, the Ramaytush in San Francisco, the Yokuts in South Bay and Central Valley, and the Muwekma tribe throughout the region. Ohlone people still live in the bay area and other parts of the world today. The descendants of the Ohlone living in this area, hold an annual gathering of Ohlone peoples at Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont.

Spanish and Mexican Era (1776-1846)

In October 1775, Juan Bautista de Anza departed from the Northern Mexican town of Tubac with an expedition of 240 settlers, heading to the San Francisco Bay in Alta California. The goal of the expedition was to establish a military presidio and catholic mission near the mouth of the bay, and to secure the area for the Spanish crown. Their 500-mile journey led them on horseback across rivers, deserts, and snowy mountains, through territory that had been traveled by only a few Spanish explorers before them.

Excerpts from Font's complete diary of the second Anza expedition for Wednesday March 27, 1776.

"From the inner terminus of the passage extends the remarkable port of San Francisco. This harbor consists of a great gulf or estuary, as they call it, which must be some twenty-five leagues long. Viewed from the mouth it runs about southeast and north- west, the entry or mouth being in the middle. Most of the beach of the harbor, according to what I saw when we went around it, is not clean, but muddy, miry and full of sloughs, and for this reason bad. The width of the port is not uniform, for at the southern end it must be a league wide and in the middle some four leagues. At the extreme northwest it ends in a great bay* more than eight leagues in extent, as it seemed to me, whose beach appeared to me clean and not miry like the other, and which is nearly round in shape, although several inlets are seen in it, so that at so long a distance I was not able accurately to distinguish its form." *San Pablo Bay 

Monday, April 1, 1776

"They continued along the foothills. Descending the hill they crossed Arroyo del Bosque, a stream in eastern Fruitvale. Upon reaching Berkeley, elk were chased. It was on the stretch east of Richmond that Font mapped Richmond Peninsula. The deep arroyo on whose banks they saw the abandoned village was Wildcat Creek, crossed near San Pablo, and the next one, where they saw the village, was San Pablo Creek. Continuing now over the hills, past Pinole, they camped at Rodeo, on Rodeo Creek." 

Rancho San Pablo was the first permanent non-Indian settlement in all of what is now Contra Costa county. The name San Pablo was given to the land in 1811 by Ramón Abella, a priest from Mission Dolores who explored the bay and the northern rivers. 

* De Anza Expedition Roll Call *

Some of those who left Tubac on Monday October 23, 1775.

LEADERS

Don Juan Bautista de Anza

Fray Pedro Font  

Fray Francisco Garces

Lieutenant Don José Joaquín Moraga

Sergeant Juan Pablo Grijalva

Don Mariano Vidal, Commissary

RECRUITS
Joaquín Isidro de Castro (43) and his wife, María Martina Botiller (40)

Children:

Ignacio Clemente (22)

Anna María Josefa (18)

José Mariano (14)

Francisco Antonio (9)

María Encarnación (8)

José Joaquín (7)

*Francisco María (5)

María Martina (4)

Carlos Antonio (6 mo)

(ages given are approximate)

SETTLERS
Nicolas Antonio Berryessa (15)** accompanied by his sister, María Isabel (18, unmarried)

Father Font wrote in his diary that when the vaqueros, muleteers, servants, and Indian interpreters were counted and added to the above list, a total of 240 people were counted. He later states in his diary that about 193 people remained in California. In a similar list that Anza put together, he estimated that over 191 people left Tubac. Both Font and Anza were unsure as to the exact number, and so we may never know all the people who were on the 1775-1776 expedition.

*Francisco María Castro was later grantee of Rancho San Pablo.

**Nicolas Antonio Berryessa is father of Gabriela Berryessa (wife of Francisco María Castro).

Mexican Land Grant

Below is a copy of the petition submitted on 15 April 1823 by Don Francisco María Castro for a tract of land known as "Cuchiyunes" in San Pablo which was formerly occupied by the mission priests of San Francisco and since abandoned.

Transcription of the Francisco Castro petition document.

Petition.

To the Most Excellent Deputation. 

I, Francisco Castro, a member of the Provisional Deputation of Alta California, neighbor and resident of the Pueblo of San José, in the same Province, most respectfully present to Your Excellency; that being the owner of a considerable number of cattle and horses, and desiring to secure and promote the increase of the same, as well as such I may hereafter acquire, and to provide for the subsistence of my numerous family, I find myself under the necessity of soliciting a place or tract of land on which to make my establishment; wherefore I apply to Your Excellency, to the end: that in the exercise of your ample authority, you may be pleased to concede me the possession of the place named Cuchiyunes (alias) San Pablo; which heretofore was occupied by the Mission of San Francisco, and is situated opposite the same and the Port of the same name on the margins of the Bay, which place or tract of land has been abandoned and with the knowledge of the Reverend Father has been petitioned for from the present Governor who will bear witness to the fact if it should be necessary; wherefore, hoping as I do, in the goodness of Your Excellency, if I am considered worthy of this favor, I pray, that the corresponding possession and ownership may be given me of this land for the ends set forth and for the security of myself and my successors. Wherefore, I earnestly pray Your Excellency, to look with favor upon my petition, providing in justice, as you may deem meet. Monterey, April 15th, 1823. Francisco Castro.

Response.
Monterey, April 15th,1823.

     The place petitioned for by the interested party, of the extent of three leagues, is conceded to him by the Most Excellent Deputation, he being considered worthy of this favor, in consideration of his notorious services, his honorable character, and the amount of property that he possesses, wherefore, the Commandant of the Presidio of San Francisco is ordered by the Government to measure the lands petitioned for, and to place the said Castro in possession thereof. ~Argüello. José Joaquin de la Torre, Secretary.

Note: Many early Californo settlers only spoke Spanish and could not read or write. They would most likely engage an attorney or someone who could write important documents for them. 

"Rancho San Pablo was a 17,939-acre (72.60 km2) land grant in present-day Contra Costa County, California given in 1823 by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello to Francisco María Castro (1775–1831), a former soldier at the San Francisco Presidio and one-time alcalde of the Pueblo of San José. The grant was reconfirmed by Governor José Figueroa in 1834 to the heirs of Francisco Castro, including Víctor Castro. The San Pablo grant covered what is now Richmond, San Pablo, El Cerrito, and Kensington in western Contra Costa County.

The land had previously been grazing land for cattle belonging to the priests of Misión Dolores but was secularized by the new Mexican republic. Francisco María Castro lived there with his wife María Gabriéla Berreyesa and family from the late 1820s until his death in 1831. The Governor of Mexican Alta California, Juan Alvarado, married one of the Castro daughters in 1839. After his term as governor was completed, they retired to her family property on Rancho San Pablo.

With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican–American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Pablo was filed with the Public Land Commission by Francisco María's son, Joaquín Ysidro Castro in 1852, and the grant was patented to Joaquín Ysidro Castro in 1878." 

Rancho San Pablo - Wikipedia 

Pioneer Builders of San Pablo